


Prowl

by resonant_aura



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Pike is a BAMF, a ton of original characters here, battle!fic, meanwhile at Sarenrae's Temple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:16:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonant_aura/pseuds/resonant_aura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pike Trickfoot has been a healer for as long as she could remember. But she isn't only a healer--and it would be beneficial for her enemies to remember that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prowl

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: All the people and places you recognize are the intellectual property of their respective creators--Ashley Johnson, Matt Mercer, and the other amazing members of Geek & Sundry’s fantastic webstream show Critical Role. 
> 
> Another part of the Critical Role character exploration project. This is set sometime during Vox Machina's adventures apart from Pike. In my head it vaguely lines up with Episode 26/27. I did some research to make Sarenrae's temple and the characters involved with its restoration as close to canon as possible, but I did fill in a lot with my own ideas. (Is there a curse on the Tower of Syrac? What does it do? Is this going to become a plot point later!? YES TO ALL OF THE ABOVE.) And yes, I did actually build a character sheet and backstory for Taelin. Also, hey guys, writing battle scenes is hard! Who knew!

The path is a familiar one now. In the darkness of a moonless night, Pike Trickfoot can still find her way over the crumbled remains of the Tower of Syrac. She places her feet with care in the niches and corners of the remains of its three walls, looming high over the barren field of rock that separates it from the rest of Vasselheim’s glory. She walks along the top of the wall, her armor breaking the silence of every step with a discordant clang. In this place she does not regret the noise, because she does not fear the dark.

There is nothing on the wall. No greenery, no brave moss setting roots in the stone, no seeds awaiting their time in the sun. The tower is dead. There is nothing living in the whole span of the rubble.

Finally Pike comes to the center of the southern wall, the tallest of the ancient tower’s boundaries that still stand. She turns and looks out, beyond the quiet homes of Vasselheim’s craftsmen and laborers, beyond the skydock and the great wall, out to the verdant sea of ancient trees beyond.

It doesn’t really matter how far she looks, nor how strong her eyesight. She knows that Vox Machina is a world away, and she feels it in her heart.

With half a smile, bittersweet, Pike turns her back on the imagined images of her friends and kneels, facing the dark pit where she spends most of her time these days. She brings her hands together over the medallion nestled safely beneath her breastplate.

 _Sarenrae,_ she prays, _you know I’m working hard to restore this temple for you. I’m trying to bring some light into the world, because it seems like there’s a lot of darkness right now and it’s causing people pain. I feel like there’s darkness in this tower, too. Nothing grows here. Nothing is drawn here except chaos. Can you tell me what it was that cursed this tower? Why was your temple buried here for so long? I’m sure it would help if we knew what we were up against._

In the quiet, there is no answer. The night is still, the sooty rocks silent and mysterious as always, and the only sound is the bawling cry of a Bastion in a nearby neighborhood calling after some wayward youth.

Pike waits five minutes, ten, fifteen. Then she sighs and rises slowly, wincing a little as her knees ache from contact with the hard metal and stone. She stares pensively at the blackened edges of the wall. She pulls her holy symbol out of her armor and ducks beneath the fine gold chain, removing it to hold the gentle golden curve of wings in her right hand. Pike crouches, dangling the pendant so that it just barely grazes the surface of the wall, and closes her eyes. She gently presses her free palm to the gravelly rocks, pocked by weather and, strangely, not at all smoothed by time.

In her mind she dips into the softly glowing pool of energy, gold streaked with silver, that represents her magical essence. She draws a little from the pool and sends the ribbon of intent down her arm, pushes it into the stone. _Show me what you are_ , she whispers to the secretive stone. _Show me. Are you good? Are you evil? Show me what you are._

And as with every night and every morning before, Pike hears a muted answer: a dull, throbbing sense of ill will, a sluggish malevolence that does not focus to a point on any one creature. It’s almost like a sleeping beast. It stirs only slowly and never with any purpose, but always carrying with it the taint of malice, a dark cloud of evil power that is buried so deep within the stones it may as well be the heart of the earth itself. Dormant, ancient, evil—and there is no more detail than that.

_Again._

“Well, _shit!_ ” Pike yells into the night. She scowls at the stone, then makes a fist and punches the wall in the face. She howls again in pain as her knuckles split open. Pike mutters curses under her breath and bites down on her hand, careful not to let any blood fall to the possibly cursed stones beneath.

“If I didn’t know any better, I would wonder about a cleric of Our Lady using such foul language,” a voice calls from out of the dark. Pike startles a little, her armor rattling.

Several feet down, emerging from the shadowy depression at the center of the old tower, a flame flickers into steady orange light. Pike leans over the edge and looks down into the smiling face of Jesira, her wrinkles creased into deep shadow by the torch’s light. Her hair draws the firelight into its coils and knots where it’s messily piled on her head, and her deep blue robes look almost purple in the gloom. “Ready to come down?” the human woman asks.

“Yes,” Pike replies grudgingly, glancing at her hand—the bleeding’s stopped—and replacing her holy symbol around her neck. She has the vague feeling, as she does so often these days, that Sarenrae might be giving her the look of an exasperated mother. Pike retraces her steps, (her armor is twice as loud now with the frustrated jerking of her movements) and finally slides the last few feet down a small hill of rubble. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You did,” Jesira says equably, still smiling. “Did you learn anything?”

“I learned that stone punches back.”

“You… punched the stone?”

“It’s something I’ve seen a friend do a lot,” Pike says, tamping down the wistfulness. “It always seemed to work for him.”

“We all walk different paths. Perhaps punching is appropriate for him in a way that is less so for you.”

Pike swallows the urge to mutter and instead looks up to meet Jesira’s eyes. It’s easily a two foot difference between the two women, but Pike is accustomed to spending time with taller mortals. She sighs and tries to put out the fire of anger. “I don’t know what’s going on with that wall. I can feel it—there’s something like a curse there. Something evil, I think. But I can’t figure out who put it there, or why, or what it’s supposed to do.” She blows a breath out, tossing her fair hair out of her face. “I don’t know enough about arcane magic, I guess.”

“You think it is arcane and not divine in nature?”

“Sarenrae doesn’t tell me any other gods have interfered with the land here, so it has to be, doesn’t it? Unless…” Pike shrugs and starts walking briskly towards their shared living space, Jesira following along at a more sedate pace. “Maybe it isn’t the right time. Or maybe something is blocking me from hearing her? If we finish the temple, do you think whatever might be stopping the connection will disappear?”

“That depends on whether or not the connection is stopped, doesn’t it?” Jesira shakes her head. “I don’t know, Lady Pike. You know more about the divine arts than I do.”

Pike groans. “I told you, it’s just Pike.”

Jesira just smiles. “You are the Lady’s Champion here; why shouldn’t we give you a title?”

“Seriously, Jesira, if I—wait.”

Something isn’t right.

Pike holds very still, willing her armor to silence, and peers into the flickering shadows at the edge of the torch’s reach. Being surrounded by dark stone, the temple of Sarenrae is easily submerged in darkness—by day it is not easily spotted, and by night it is all but invisible. Their efforts to polish and repair the brass accents and panels on the walls have helped some, but there is still soot sunk into the limestone and grime caked onto the metal of a good half the temple. The northernmost wall of the Tower of Syrac, hard against the beginning of the temple’s space, looms over the open air above the altar and throws everything in shadow.

Their numbers have grown—from four, when Pike arrived, to a dozen—and fortunately they had recently discovered a small antechamber almost completely buried beneath charred rubble and twisted metal that seemed to be private living quarters for the attendants of the temple. Pike meant to suggest some of their number start clearing out the space for those who might not be comfortable sleeping in the open. For now, all twelve of them had bedrolls and bundles of clothes spread across the limestone floor of the main chamber. The restorers had taken to keeping a fire going constantly, as both a dedication to Sarenrae as well as a practical measure for safety and comfort, and the bedrolls had become loosely circled around the fire.

But the fire is out.

“Put it out,” Pike murmurs to Jesira, gesturing to the torch.

“Wha—the torch? Why do we—”

“Do it, please,” Pike says, gently insistent.

Slowly, Jesira crouches low to the ground and stifles the flame in rock dust and dirt. In the true darkness, Pike blinks her eyes and slowly brings the quiet temple of Sarenrae into focus.

Every single bedroll is empty.

Pike sidles closer to Jesira and leans over to whisper in her ear. “How long have you been awake?”

“Not long. Not yet an hour. Why? What’s wrong?”

They have a standard policy that if anyone needs to rise in the night and leave the temple for any reason—to answer nature’s call, usually—they wake a lookout partner to take with them. It’s happened before; when Pike returns from her fruitless explorations of the tower, sometimes two bedrolls are empty, and she always lies awake and watching until her people return. She very much doubts they all had to leave at once for any natural reason.

“Stay with me,” Pike whispers, and moves to hug the closest wall, reaching for her mace. Some of the younger members of their group had been bemused by her insistence that she be armed at all times, but they didn’t know any better. Now she’s worried they may have learned. With Jesira shuffling along as quietly as possible behind her, Pike makes her way into the temple, moving from the crumbled tower remains to the open arch between two panels of pale limestone.

Still quiet; still dark. Pike’s eyes quickly scan the scaffolding, the makeshift campsite, the still-dusty archway leading to the newest chamber.

“What do you see?” Jesira whispers, and Pike quickly reaches back and up, gesturing for Jesira’s silence. She hears the painter gulp.

Slowly moving into the campsite, Pike keeps her focus open and aware. There must be a hint, a clue, some indication of what trouble came here—but the bedrolls are only as disturbed as they would be from a person rising to work, and the only strange thing the dead fire.

Suddenly the chamber is filled with searing light, and Pike flinches, eyes squeezed shut. A triumphant voice shouts, “Got you now, sweetheart!”

She doesn’t think; she moves. The air to her left is a sudden cool breeze over her neck, and Pike ducks to her right, rolls until she fetches up against a bedroll and kicks herself upright. It’s not graceful at all, and in fact she doesn’t roll so much as she clunks—but it’s enough that whatever was coming for her missed. Her eyes are watering but functional. She looks around, mace readied, blinking to see through the tears.

The temple is afire with reflections of light bounced from the cleaned brass plates and adornments in a glittering display—in the center of the chamber, fifteen feet up, a familiar sphere of brilliant white light. A light spell; someone is casting, which would normally be fine except someone just tried to tackle her. Her newest companions are all here. Three of them are arrayed in a line near the altar; another group of six are off to one side, bound by ropes and gagged. She sees poor Umnir, the gnomish scholar who first came with Jesira to explore the temple, glaring balefully at the most prominent figure in the line: a lithe silent woman garbed in dark leathers and wool.

“Taelin,” Pike says, a little short of breath. “What’s going on?”

Taelin smiles. On her sharp elven cheekbones it’s a thin razor of thing, and with the flat look in her eyes it becomes even more menacing. Her long dark hair slides over one shoulder as she shrugs. “A ransom. Obviously.”

“What are you talking about?”

A cry from her left jerks Pike’s head around. Jesira is on the floor, scrambling backward, and just beyond her is one of their newest workers—a scrawny, limber pole of a man named Garner. He’s backing away, one arm braced over his head, one hand cupped protectively to his temple. Jesira’s torch clatters to the ground. Pike runs to Jesira’s side and takes a protective stance over the trembling woman. “What ransom?” she demands.

Taelin’s eyes flick to Garner and back to Pike. She smirks. “Sarenrae’s presence in this city is nothing. It’s meaningless. But I hear you’ve been on some pretty impressive adventures before you became a dust-monger. Been to Emon, hmm? You’ve seen some legendary battles, untold treasures. I’m sure whatever knowledge you’ve got in your tiny little gnome head is far more valuable than whatever dusty relics we find in here.”

Pike’s face sets in a determined frown. “So take me. Leave the others alone.”

“No, no, it doesn’t work like that.” Taelin wanders over to the altar—a large, rounded block of limestone seamlessly set in the floor, inscribed with swirling lines of brass that curl into an ancient rendition of Sarenrae’s wings. Taelin regards the stone for a moment, then perches on top of it, legs crossed. Jesira lets out a tiny, offended gasp. “You see, we came to work with you so we could watch. We’ve seen what’s important to you. We’ve seen what motivates you.” Taelin’s eyes curve like a cat’s watching its prey squirm. “It isn’t Sarenrae, I can tell you that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do,” Taelin retorts. “You care about these people. And if I take them away from you—if I hurt them—” She nods over her shoulder to one of the young men on either side of her, and he begins to walk towards the captured curators of the temple— “you’ll do what I say.”

Pike’s eyes track the man—she sees the glint of a dagger in his hand. “Don’t.”

The man doesn’t stop; Taelin laughs.

Pike feels her left palm itching, growing warm. “I mean it, don’t.”

The man is heading for Umnir, a nasty smile on his face.

In a split second, Pike has absolute and utter clarity. These people lied to gain her confidence. They entered a sacred place with a hidden motive. They intend only harm to her friends; they would hurt them to manipulate her. Whatever the reason is, whatever their excuse, it isn’t good enough. And she has no intention of putting up with it.

In the cold stillness of her certainty, fueled by her anger and her eagerness for action, the pool at her center is already leaping to her aid and sending energy coursing through her blood. She flings her arm up and sends a bolt of light streaking into the enemy bearing down on Umnir. The man shrieks and drops his dagger, shuddering as he falls to his knees. Pike stares at his unconscious body for a moment, then turns her steady gaze on Taelin.

Taelin looks… bored. “Are you sure a follower of Sarenrae is still faithful when she attacks a civilian in cold blood?”

“Are you sure it’s a civilian when he’s armed and attacking someone who’s tied up and helpless?”

Taelin smirks, but says nothing.

Pike glances around. The knife-wielding man—she regrets that she can’t remember his name—is breathing steadily on the ground, out cold. Garner is several feet off, a thin line of blood sliding down from his forehead to his chin, but he’s glaring and on his feet. Taelin’s other secret ally—a slouching young man with a stubbly chin and drooping eyes—is looking over at his fallen friend, jaw slack.

One down, one injured, and one ready to flee. But it’s still three on one and they’re all taller than her.

“Look,” Pike says softly, “I don’t want to hurt you. And I don’t believe you really want to hurt these innocent people. If it’s money you want, you can take what I have and go, and no one will follow you. If it’s something else, then we’ll have to talk—but you know I won’t talk to you if you’re holding these people’s lives over my head.” She gives Taelin a moment to think, her gaze stony. “Don’t make the wrong choice.”

For a moment, Taelin’s icy demeanor seems to waver, and her eyes drift over to the body on the ground. She looks at Jesira, still shaking at Pike’s feet. But then she draws upward with a sudden sharp intake of breath, shakes a bit, and then settles into stillness. Her eyes are narrow and dark as she glares at Pike.

Then the light goes out.

Pike is ready for it this time. She squints through the sudden gloom, looking for movement, and sees Taelin leaping down from the altar with one hand upraised. Pike reaches back behind her, her free hand grabbing Jesira’s arm, her other hand dropping the mace to take hold of her holy symbol. “Protect her,” she whispers, praying fiercely, and is relieved to feel the bubble of energy that indicates a successful protection spell. She has no idea if Taelin is truly evil (she fervently hopes not), but anything is better than nothing. “Hide,” she barks at Jesira, and that’s all she can do because then she’s picking up the mace and running.

Three on one, potentially—Pike bolts to her left, tracking movement in the shadows until she spots Garner’s bulky silhouette lurching for her. He’s not steady on his feet. Pike tries to remember which side of his head Jesira must have clubbed—where was the blood again—but she’s out of time and she’s already within reach of him. She doesn’t even know what weapon he has. His shape changes, one arm pulled back, his body angled for a swing. Pike breathes, waits, and then moves.

She misjudged—she feels the nauseating impact of a fist slamming into the armor over her side, between ribs and hip, and she tries to tense and breathe through it. A brawler, she notes, but it doesn’t matter, because Garner’s momentum already put him where she wants him. With his torso lowered enough that he could strike her, his head is in range. Pike swings her mace around and strikes him hard on the skull with the base of the hilt.

There’s a chunky moan, a retching sound, and a heavy thump. He actually lands a little on top of her boots, and Pike struggles to stay upright. As she sways she feels the buzz of arcane force gathering nearby and has nothing to do but hope it misses.

She needs higher ground. Pike sprints away from the temple towards the Tower of Syrac’s ancient bones, heading for the incline of rubble she slid down mere minutes before. She hears Taelin speaking behind her. Then she hears the hissing, almost inaudibly high-pitched scream of a magic missile—one tears into the ground three feet in front of her but the other hits her square in the back. It doesn’t do much but knock the wind from her, but Pike chokes, coughs, blinks. Then two more, one catching her in the foot and almost tripping her as it sears through the leather of her boot. She glances back over her shoulder.

Taelin is closer than Pike thought, murmuring liquid syllables under her breath as she walks. She brings her hand down in a slow slash, and where her hand cuts through the air it leaves a rippling gash, translucent but quivering as if she had rent the universe. She puts her hand through one end of the ripple and there’s a sudden suction in the temple, a shudder through the earth. Taelin trains her full attention on Pike and bears down, now wielding what looks like a transparent longsword, silver glimmers of magic glinting along its length.

Battle magic, Pike realizes. It’s all battle magic; Taelin’s not a caster, she’s using magic to augment her melee battle.

And then she thinks: maybe she doesn’t _need_ the higher ground. What she needs is exactly what she has.

So she skids on her heel to slow down, turns, and starts barreling straight towards Taelin.

She’s aware of her friends screaming their outrage and fear through the darkness, muffled by their gags; she’s aware of Taelin’s other ally looming over the helpless prisoners and occasionally kicking one into whimpering silence, apparently too occupied to join in the battle. What she’s doing is probably very very stupid. But she’s furious and focused and sometimes—well, sometimes you need to punch a wall in the face.

Taelin makes a double-handed slash at Pike when the gnome comes within distance. The sword rings against Pike’s armor, making her ears ache and her teeth clench because she knows there will be a bruise later, but she doesn’t let it stop her. Instead of fighting the swing Pike uses it as a driving force to spin her around behind Taelin. With the momentum of her spin, Pike takes her mace in both hands and slams the mace’s points into the back of Taelin’s knees.

The elf shrieks as her legs buckle, sending her sprawling to the floor, a spray of blood following in her wake. Pike brings her hand to her chest, to the image of Sarenrae, and imagines the firelight of their camp gleaming on the brass of the altar. As her hand stretches away from her holy symbol and out towards Taelin, a thread of fire follows her fingers and flies up into the air, thickening and streaking down in a column of flame right over Taelin’s legs as Pike whispers the words of the spell. Taelin shrieks again as Pike wordlessly watches her flame strike spell come down with as much blood and vehemence in her heart as she can bear.

In a small, quiet part of Pike’s heart, she is keening in pain.

When the spell ends, there is quiet, enfolded in darkness. Pike waits and listens to her foe’s harsh breathing, then touches her pendant and murmurs, “Light.” A soft white glow comes to life in her necklace, revealing the gory scene before her. Taelin is shivering facedown on the limestone floor of the temple, the rippling sword gone, her hands alternatively clutching at and flinching away from her badly burned legs. To one side, Garner is a limp heap of limbs; at the other end of the temple, the stubble-chinned man—she can’t remember his name either, and in a quiet part of herself where she isn’t immersed in combat she is quite ashamed—is watching with a slack-jawed expression.

Pike stands still and clenches her hand in a fist, fighting the urge to heal. “Taelin. Let my friends go, pick up your followers, and leave. I don’t want to do this to you.”

“I have a _job_ ,” Taelin spits in reply, and Pike is utterly surprised by the quicksilver motions of the wounded woman. So surprised that the keen dagger slicing toward her is too quick to dodge, her armor is too heavy, her feet are too slow. She watches the dagger fly, but doesn’t see where it lands. And then she feels it, a shove to her shoulder that knocks her off balance, utterly off her feet, landing with a deafening rattle on the ground. Gasping as a sudden firestorm of pain distracts her, Pike struggles to look down—she has to dim the light spell—and finds a dagger’s hilt casting a sharp black shadow over her chest, rising from between her left shoulder and her breastbone.

She sits up, stunned. A few feet away Taelin is writhing on the ground, twisting around her ruined legs, trying to do—something. Pike doesn’t know. Pike doesn’t care. The dagger is still buried in her flesh.

And then words are coming out of her mouth without her knowledge, without her intention: “You should have hit my fighting arm.”

She’s on her feet, not screaming but walking with her mouth set in a grim line. She channels another bolt of light through her hand at Taelin’s squirming form, ignoring the pained cry. When she reaches her prone opponent, she lifts her mace and brings it down with an ugly crunch on Taelin’s thigh.

Taelin screams, and faints.

The temple is absolutely silent.

Pike stares at Taelin’s unconscious body. She feels sweat edging the lines of her palm, slicking the grip of her mace, prickling on her brow and at her hairline.

Then she looks for the only remaining enemy, Taelin’s ally hovering over the captives. Pike’s gaze is steady and foreboding as she tightens her hold on her mace. The stubble-cheeked man—Wes, that was his name—lifts his hands in surrender.

“Untie everyone,” she says to him quietly. “And then take your allies and stand at the altar. I’ll heal them when I’m sure my friends are safe.”

Wes nods sharply and slowly bends to start untying the ropes around Umnir’s wrists.

Pike stands over the elf woman’s body, keeping track of the shallow breathing and the slowly dripping blood. She isn’t sure how much time has passed when a soft shuffling sound alerts her to another’s presence. She’s suddenly aware of flickering orange light dancing through the temple; someone’s relit the campfire and set torches to burning. She smells dust and a faint scent of oil paints—Jesira. “I’ve sent Galdur to the guard for the Bastions,” the older woman says. “They should see to our… erstwhile helpers.”

Pike hums softly in acknowledgement but says nothing.

“Are you all right?” Jesira asks.

“I’ll be fine.”

“Your shoulder…”

“I’ll take care of it.”

She can feel Jesira’s hesitation and wariness through the fog of exhaustion, but she can’t bring herself to do anything about it. She simply stands there until Wes slouches up warily and takes Taelin’s body by the arms, half-dragging her to the altar. Then Pike shakes herself out of her battle trance and slumps.

“Everyone’s okay?” she whispers. Jesira nods, and Pike lets out a slow, shuddering breath.

That… that was a lot of blood in one evening. That was a lot of—well. That was a lot.

Switching her mace to her off hand, Pike tries to shake the tension out of her arm. The weight of her weapon makes the dagger in her shoulder shift and bite, but she ignores it. “I should… I’ll go take care of them. If anyone has any injuries—”

“Lady Pike.”

The gnome chokes off her sentence’s end and looks up at Jesira, who is gazing at the altar of Sarenrae. “What?”

“The Healing Light is a more compassionate god than most. She believes in the power of redemption, correcting those who strayed from a good path.” She looks down from the altar to Pike. “But that correction can come in lots of ways. Some people benefit from a good word or gentle hand, but others need a more… aggressive introduction. The Dawnflower has been known to set her holy fire to those who need a stern lesson in the value of life.” Jesira crouches down to take Pike’s hand in hers. “Do not let your actions haunt you, as I’ve seen others’ do.”

Pike stares at the drying blood and scorch marks on Sarenrae’s temple floor. Then she smiles at Jesira, a weary smile, but genuine. “Thank you,” she says simply. “Can you settle everyone, help them get some rest? I’ll wait for the Bastions. I’d like to know who it was that hired Taelin to attack me.”

Jesira gapes a little, surprised. “She—someone _asked_ her to attack you? Specifically?”

“She said she had a job to do,” Pike explains with a grim nod. “I can’t think what else she would have meant. I think she wanted to leave, but—something changed her mind.”

“That’s… upsetting. You don’t know who it could be?”

Pike sighs heavily. “Not really.”

“Hmm… Well, I’ll take care of the team. You take care of yourself.”

Pike nods, already crossing to her bedroll to collect her medical tools. She can’t take the armor off with the dagger where it is, which makes things a little difficult, but at least it isn’t in a hard to reach place. She grits her teeth, closes her hand around the hilt, and pulls once sharply.

It _hurts,_ and Pike can’t help but growl when she drops the knife and shoves a pad of thickly wadded gauze in its place. So stupid to use light when she wasn’t sure if her enemy was incapacitated. So stupid to be off-guard. She takes in a hissing breath to calm down and starts tugging at the straps of her breastplate—which, no matter how she does it, is a tedious, painful process.

Stupid, stupid plate armor.

Eventually the armor comes off and a bandage goes on, and Pike is an island of quiet surrounded by a nervous, fluttering sea of activity. Everyone is up and moving, trying to shake off the aftereffects of the night. She can tell that things have changed already: people leave a little extra space between where she sits and where they are walking, and she can feel the heavy stares that slide off of her with wariness and awe—and fear.

It was how Vox Machina looked at her when she came back from _The Broken Howl_ , for a while.

It hurts even more than the knife.

Pike gets up awkwardly and walks towards the altar, where Wes is keeping a close watch over his three fallen friends. He looks up at her with even more fear in his eyes, so she smiles, as gently as she knows how. She holds up her hands, showing the soft glow of a healing spell welling in her palm, and only comes closer when the man nods. She kneels beside Taelin and presses her palm as lightly as she can to the burned, twisted sinew at her knee. Pike channels her thoughts and energy into knitting muscle and blood and flesh, and tries to ignore the vague memory worrying at the back of her mind—a frozen image of her holy symbol, cracked, suffering from her unfortunate choices.

_“Do not let your actions haunt you.”_

She isn’t going to be haunted by this; she’s seen worse in her journeys as a healer.

But it isn’t a healer that earns those fearful looks, the careful footsteps. It’s a warrior that does that. A killer. A killer who uses their anger to lash out at others.

It will be the anger she felt, the surge of violence that welled up from the earth through her feet to thunder through every heartbeat, that will disturb her dreams for weeks to come.


End file.
